Family System
by illyrilex
Summary: Pre-RE5: One-shot. Claire pays her brother a visit.


**Oh, shit you guys. I have been working on this for what was probably an obscene amount of time. With that said, I have to give massive props to Alias Blackclaw for sticking with me and putting up with my caffeine-fueled whining and file transfers, lamenting my writer's block. You're a doll!**

**With that said, I'm thinking the time-frame for this is winter 2008. This may change depending on canon timelines with Rev and RE6 now in the mix. If that's the case I'll come back and do some damage control, but until then, you know the drill: Apologies for any typos, etc..**

**All characters belong to Capcom!**

**Oh, and a quick FYI: "moded," is pronounced "moh-ded."**

**_** It has come to my attention that there is another story here on fanfiction that features the Redfields and opens in a very similar fashion to this beast here. Awkward doesn't even begin to cover it, but I think I need to make it clear that this story, the one you are reading right now, was the originator of said scenario, and not the other way around. There were some PMs and I have been given rightful credit for that which was my brainchild, and all is well._**

**_Onward!_**

* * *

><p>Claire Redfield strolled into her brother's apartment as if she owned the place, carefully setting a plastic shopping bag on the kitchen counter before removing her coat and draping it across a chair. Moving toward the living room, she opened her mouth to announce her presence but stopped as she caught sight of her big brother's hulking form sprawled across the sofa. One arm rested over the top of his head while the other hung off to the side, the remote control just inches away from rapidly twitching fingers. A few file folders, several bags of Reese's Pieces – one of which half-eaten – and a disassembled pistol covered the coffee table. The sound of the television seemed to be battling it out in a bitter grudge-match against the sound of his snoring.<p>

Claire knew all too well that her kin hadn't exactly been sleeping well these days: Frequent time out in the field busting bad guys the world over, as well as an inhuman exercise regimen that knew no bounds were taking their toll on the poor guy. She also knew that waking him would probably be a bad idea, as any extra sleep was absolutely needed, but they had made plans to spend some quality time together during the vacation that his boss had forced him to take. There was no way in hell that Claire was going to let this slide: she barely saw her brother these days, and that was unacceptable.

"Chris," Claire leaned over and shook a massive shoulder. "Wake up."

No response, so she shook a little harder.

"Christopher."

Still no response.

"Chris!?"

Claire slapped the slumbering man's face several times in quick succession, his stubble and complete lack of reaction irritating her beyond belief. With a low growl, the younger of the two quickly felt along her sibling's chest until she found his nipple through his shirt: She grasped it between her thumb and forefinger, gritted her teeth, and twisted it as hard as she could.

"WAKE UP, ASSHOLE!"

Chris yelled, a pained cry that tapered off into a sort of choking warble that was – without a doubt – unlike anything Claire had ever heard before. She bent double and laughed hysterically as her brother bounded upright, limbs flailing every which way. He quickly turned, murder written all over his face as he looked up at her.

"THE FUCK?!"

He rubbed at his chest and glared at the laughing woman as she took a breath and pulled herself up to her full height.

"I had to do _something_ to wake you up! And what the hell with that noise you made? You sounded like – "

Chris angrily cut across her. "Fuck you, Claire! Fuck you and your goddamn purple nurple!"

"Whatever, you're fine," Claire rolled her eyes and sauntered to the kitchen, completely unaffected by the verbal display of the infamous Redfield Rage. "Besides, I could have done something way worse – I could have used the Doris Day Method."

"Ugh. I'll take the titty twister over that any day," said Chris. He made a face as he continued to massage his chest: he was fairly certain that a hair or two had been ripped out of the now bruising skin. "You know, to this day I can't hear 'Que Sera Sera' without wanting to yell at the bitch to let me sleep, no matter what time of day it is. Mom was either a genius or a sadist."

"I know, right?"

Claire opened the refrigerator, grabbed a beer, and practically skipped back to the living room. She handed the drink to her groggy counterpart and eyed him carefully as he thanked her. She watched as he pressed the cold bottle against his chest; there was a slight change in his demeanor that Claire immediately picked up on.

"What were you dreaming about?"

"How did you know?"

"I always know! Now, come on – spill!"

Chris set his bottle down: He ran his hands through his graying hair and sighed. Just moments ago he had stood on a beach, absolutely terrified at the sight of his deceased partner, bloody and broken, gurgling on her own blood. She had shambled toward him, her neck bent at an impossible angle. Her collar-bone jutted out of mangled flesh that had been sliced to ribbons by broken glass that littered the wet sand. Additional pieces stuck out of her at various points, a particularly large fragment lodged into the space where her left eye should have been. The rest of her face – or what was left of it, rather – was contorted in pain in hate. She pointed a severely broken finger at him and there was a sudden pain in his chest…

The older Redfield shut his eyes, trying to clear the gruesome image from his mind. There was a quick pause before he said, very simply, "Kittens."

Claire made a face as she sat down beside him: She took the remote control from the floor and hit the mute button, silencing the sounds of expletives and gunfire that issued from the needlessly large flat-screen.

"You can do better than that."

"Fine," Chris mumbled. He averted his eyes as he twisted the top off of his drink and took a swig. "It wasn't kittens."

"No kidding. Jill or Wesker?" Claire inquired as she took the open bag of candy from the table. She poured a few pieces into her hand and gave the package to her brother: he dumped the remaining contents straight into his mouth.

"The former. Don't give me that look – I accepted it a long time ago," Chris stated around a mouthful of chocolate, peanut butter, and hard candy shell. "And I'm coping – mostly – but that doesn't mean that it wasn't my fault." There was a brief pause as he swallowed. He grabbed another bag of candy, tore it open, and nearly inhaled it. How he was able to talk with his face stuffed so full was a mystery that Claire would never solve. "So – sometimes – the nightmares creep up – and –" another pause, followed by a very audible gulp and a sip of beer. "She creeps up – all… FUBAR. Sometimes she shoots me. Other times, she just stands there – and does that creepy swaying thing. But usually, she calls me a dick because I couldn't save her."

"How could you have possibly done that, though? Dude, I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but there's nothing you _could_ have done! Stop beating yourself up over it! … Please?"

Chris polished off the second bag of candy and immediately went for the third. "I'm working on it. Really, I am. And, believe it or not, I'm fuckin' killin' it."

"Pfft. Only thing you're killin' are those Reese's."

"Don't be jealous."

"Jealous of what? And if you say something about those 'guns' –"

Chris cut her off mid-sentence. "You mean these?"

He flexed his biceps.

Claire reached over and smacked her brother in the back of the head: A massive lump of chewed up food went flying out of his mouth, landing on top of a rather important looking file folder with a loud plop. Both siblings eyed the horrible looking thing on the table: Chris had a look of deep contemplation on his face.

"Don't you dare," Claire slowly shook her head as her companion leaned forward. "Dude, don't eat that. If you eat that – "

Chris quickly snatched the mass and plunked it into his mouth, triumphant. His sister squealed and flailed her hands in an uncharacteristically girly fashion.

"Don't even pretend you haven't done that shit," Chris retorted with a grin. It was good to see him smile, even if he was gross… and right. The brunette rose from her seat and made her way back to the kitchen. She took a bottle of iced tea from the grocery bag she had set down earlier and rolled her eyes.

"That was _totally_ different," she shot back. "I was in college – _broke_ – living off of ramen! My survival depended on it!"

Chris stood up and stretched. "Whatever. You just got moded, Claire-bear. …I'm going to the bathroom."

"Go to hell," Claire nonchalantly called after him. She really hated being called Claire-bear – she felt that it was one of the worst puns on the planet. Shaking her head, she walked around the dwelling, idly scanning random shelves for nothing in particular when a stack of old photographs caught her eye. Obviously, big brother had felt nostalgic at some point. Setting her bottle down, she spent what seemed like an eternity looking through the pictures of long-dead friends and family members. They were all so hard to look at, but she just couldn't tear herself away.

"What'cha doin'?"

Chris suddenly came up behind his sister and clapped his hands – which now smelled of a fresh mountain breeze – on Claire's shoulders, the unexpected weight pushing her down slightly. There was a brief silence as she put the pictures down. Without turning around, she asked, "Do you think we're toxic?"

"You mean because everyone around us dies?"

"Yeah."

"Yep."

Claire took a deep breath and walked past Chris, back to the plush sofa. She sat down and closed her eyes.

"Ugh. I totally killed the mood. Sorry."

"Don't be."

The siblings fell into a heavy silence, each one haunted by their own thoughts. Chris sat down next to his sister and sighed.

"It's our ears."

"What?"

"Our ears. They're like Medusa – if you look at them you die."

There was an unmistakable bitterness in Chris' voice, but Claire snickered anyway. "You might be on to something," she replied. "Maybe we should start wearing earmuffs. I'll get a super cute pair. Ooh! And you can get some with kittens on them! How about Hello Kitty?"

"Hello Kitty can go straight to hell."

"What about Chococat?"

"I can do Chococat. Chococat is a man's man."

"…God, we're dumb."

"Myep."

The pair fell quiet once more, each unconsciously fidgeting with one of their ears, completely unaware that the other was carrying out the same action. A few moments passed: This time, it was Claire who broke the silence.

"Think it'll ever stop?"

"Dunno."

"Leon's still alive… But his days are probably numbered, huh?"

"Leon motherfucking Kennedy," Chris grumbled.

"Hey, don't start – he's good people! Maybe if you'd stop being such a hard-ass you'd realize that by now!"

"I'm sure that he's a delight when he's not out in the field trying to bring sexy back between roundhouse kicks, but I don't like the way he looks at you."

"Don't be jealous."

Chris scowled. Claire wondered if her brother really was jealous: she had a feeling that he hadn't been on the receiving end of a single amorous glance in quite some time. She knew that it was probably a stupid question, but the words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself:

"Do you ever miss the way Jilly-pants looked at you?"

"What?"

Chris looked at Claire as if she had spontaneously decided to smear her own feces on the walls. He stared at her, slack-jawed, as he tried to understand the logic behind her query. She innocently stared back, a little worried that she had crossed some sort of line.

"I'm sorry; that was lame. I just… Sometimes I wonder if you really did, you know…"

The silence that followed was deafening.

Finally, Chris placed his palm over his face and, to Claire's surprise, he began to laugh. He shifted in his seat, overtaken by a bizarre fit of the giggles that just didn't mesh with the coldness he had adopted since Jill's death. A wide-eyed and confused Claire assumed that her big brother was delirious from sleep deprivation, and it wasn't long before she was overcome with laughter as well.

"What's so funny?" She wailed as her brother clutched at his sides, almost on the verge of tears. Chris shook his head, cleared his throat, and did his best to keep a straight face.

"For the milliont time: NO. And, as much as I never thought I would say this, I actually miss the way she looked at _you_!"

Claire pulled herself together and furrowed her brow, slightly embarrassed. There was a shift in her brother's mood, and she knew that it was time to drop the subject: The dark cloud that had suddenly overtaken Chris was just as contagious as his laughter.

"Where's your laptop?" Claire asked.

"It's on the desk. Why?"

"I wanna go to Amazon. I wanna order some earmuffs."

* * *

><p><em>You totally saw these notes coming, right?<em>

_* Reese's Pieces are a trademark of the Hershey company. I previously established that these bad boys are Chris' comfort food._

_* The Doris Day Method is a reference to a writer named Jenny Lawson AKA The Bloggess. She once talked about her mom using Doris Day songs to wake her up in the morning. The line about "yelling at the bitch to let me sleep" also stems from that particular blog post._

_* "Que Sera Sera" is one of Doris Day's songs. Find it, listen to it and imagine it on repeat at whatever time it is that you need to wake up in the morning. It's brutal, and perfect._

_* FUBAR: Acronym for Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. Typically used in military._

_* The Redfield siblings have big ears. Look at their concept art and in-game models. Cannot be unseen!_

_* I'm not sure if there's anyone in the world that isn't familiar with Hello Kitty and Chococat._

_* In my head-canon Jill totally has The Gay._

_* The look that Chris gives Claire: think of the Are You Serious?/Seriously? Rage Face. (Know Your Meme; page three if you search for "Rage Comics")._

_Alright, I think that covers everything. As always, thank you for reading and/or reviewing! Cheers~ :D_


End file.
